broken vicinity
by xfucktheglasses
Summary: This is definitely not how you play Follow the Leader. —Erza, Gray, Natsu, Lucy.


**broken vicinity**

"Erzaaaa," Gray groaned, tilting his head back and closing his eyes, "Can we _please_ just sit down? Please? For two minutes? Pleaseeee?"

Erza whirled around, the sweat on her forehead making strands of her very red hair stick to it and obscure her eyes. There was a rather big pack on her back and the straps of her camisole were slipping off her shoulders. It was _that_ hot, that it'd require Erza to wear a camisole rather than her customary dark v-necks.

"Gray," she hissed through her teeth. "We have to find Natsu and Lucy!"

"We've been searching for five days," Gray hissed back. "If they were eaten by bears or something, we're already five days late. Let's just rest so we can get our shit together and _actually_ search."

She glared at him.

And, maybe it was the heat or his growling stomach or the sweat making his t-shirt stick to his back, but Gray found himself glaring right back at her.

"Fine," she said, crisply. "Only two minutes."

Gray instantly dropped himself to the ground and sighed. He took off his pack and rolled his shoulders, sighing again to emphasize how amazing it felt to actually sit and relax and not… And not feel like you were carrying bricks on your back. He ran both his hands through his hair, ruffling it up to get it to be messy again, instead of having his spikes droop and stick to his scalp.

"They _know_ they can't read maps," she growled, angrily. "How stupid could they be?"

"Very," Gray drawled, shaking his head. "Natsu, at least."

"Lucy's just smitten."

"Which, actually, makes her the more stupid one," Gray commented, watching as Erza dropped to the floor next to him.

"We look like vagabonds." She ran a finger against his jawline. "You even need to shave."

"You need to shower."

"_You_ need to shower."

Gray grinned, crookedly. "We can shower together."

"In your dreams."

Gray's grin widened as he looked away, his eyes searching through the never-ending trees. He'd decided long ago that he was friends with idiots, but this took that statement to a whole new level. Natsu was so stupid and Lucy… Lucy was supposed to know better! Like, legit; who the hell goes hiking in the forest? When you can't read maps, too!

He shook his head, his attention turning to Erza as she stood back up, swiping at the leaves that stuck to her backside.

"C'mon," she murmured, helping him up, "Let's keep looking."

Gray groaned and followed her.

Five days.

They've been in the godforsaken forest for _five days_.

Obviously he was going to kill Natsu if/when they found him.

"Five days in a fucking forest," he growled, frustrated. "Five. Who the hell does that?"

"Good friends," Erza responded.

Gray scoffed. "Erza, you fucking dumped sand in my pants when we were five!"

"Yes."

He shook his head and followed her, his eyes trained on the ground. He hoped Natsu died at the hands of mad axe men or something. And make them take Lucy, too; just because.

Gray came to a sudden stop once he collided with Erza; he groaned and glared for a second before he followed her line of vision.

There was a cottage.

In the middle of the forest.

They stared at each other for a second before heading straight towards it. Maybe, it was the cottage of those mad axe men that destroyed Natsu and Lucy. If it were, Erza could definitely take care of them, or something. She once threatened the football team with a bat. A single bat. She can handle mad axe men, really.

Really.

She slammed the door opened and looked around, inside.

Natsu and Lucy were there.

Sadly, they weren't dead.

They _were_, though, sitting in the middle of the ground, apparently telling stories or something stupid and ludicrous like that.

…He tilted his head; did he just hear them say twenty seven bot— heaven forbid they were singing that stupid song. Twenty seven bottles of beer on the wall. They got up to twenty seven. Oh god, oh god, Gray was going to have a fit; he was going to destroy them both. He was going to demand what the hell their problem was because he just sweated under the fucking sun for five days in search for them and they were singing about bottles on the wall.

Gray watched as Erza stormed towards Natsu, lifting him off the ground by the shirt and slamming him against the wall. "_You_. You absolute idiot, I am going to kill you! You both had me worried sick and just—"

She grabbed the compass in Natsu's hand and threw it aside, apparently to one of the windows.

Which shattered.

Gray stared for a second, arms crossed in front of his chest. He totally ignored Lucy's flinching, by the way. "How could you have thought that would _not_ break it?"

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE WINDOW." Erza glared at everyone.

Lucy flinched.

Natsu was considered dead.

Gray? Yeah, he hated everything. "Okay, taking my clothes off now."


End file.
